Building Relationships With Your Local High Schools: A Long-Term Strategy for Independent Providers

By Kevin Organisciak, M.Ed.

For an independent tutoring company there are few relationships more valuable than the one you can build with your local high schools.  But there is an important distinction between marketing to a school and becoming a resource for a school.  The first tends to produce emails that go unanswered.  The second can produce relationships that last for years.

Timing Matters

Most high schools have a number of opportunities throughout the year to communicate with parents about college planning. Fall parent nights for juniors and seniors are common. Some schools host college admissions nights, financial aid programs, standardized testing presentations, or panels featuring counselors, college admissions professionals, and other experts. These can usually be found on the school’s academic calendar. 

A guidance counselor may be able to explain the school's testing policies and the general college admissions process, but they may not be able to answer the specific questions we answer every day:

• When should my student take the SAT?
• Should we take the ACT too?
• How much preparation is enough?
• What does test-optional actually mean?
• What happens if the first score isn't good enough?

Those are questions that a knowledgeable test prep professional can answer without turning the evening into a sales presentation. And that's really the opportunity. Start by Being Useful. The first conversation with a school shouldn't necessarily be:  “Can I put a flyer in your counseling office?”

Insteach, reach out to the college counseling department, guidance director, principal, or appropriate administrator and introduce yourself.

Explain that you work with local students and families and would be happy to provide **free educational programming for parents** around topics that are already generating questions from students in the community.

For example:

• SAT vs. ACT
• Understanding the current testing landscape
• Test-optional admissions
• When students should begin test preparation

You aren't asking the school to endorse your company, you are offering to make the school's job a little easier which is a better starting point.  

Get on the Fall Parent-Night Calendar

Fall is particularly valuable because juniors and seniors are beginning to make decisions about testing and college applications.  If the school has a junior or senior parent night, ask whether there is an opportunity to participate on a panel.  A panel is often better than a standalone presentation.

The counselor can discuss the school's perspective and college admissions. And you can address the practical side of standardized testing and preparation.  When you do get this opportunity, resist the urge to “sell.”  Your goal isn't to convince 75 parents to sign up for tutoring that evening, it is actually for the counselor...so they walk away thinking:

“That person was knowledgeable, professional, and helpful. We should probably have them back." That is the beginning of a virtuous relationship.

Leave Something Behind

If you're invited into a school, don't arrive empty-handed—and don't leave behind a stack of brochures. Create something genuinely useful such as a one-page SAT/ACT Testing Timeline.

It might show when students should consider taking a first diagnostic, when to begin preparation, how much time to allow between attempts, and how the testing calendar fits into junior year.

Other useful leave-behinds might include:

• The Parent's Guide to SAT vs. ACT
• A Junior-Year College Planning Timeline
• SAT/ACT Testing Accommodations: What Parents Should Know

The best leave-behind isn't the one with the biggest logo.  It's the one parents actually keep (but do remember to include your contact information and website)!

Don't forget the school.

Empower the counselor with a digital version of any leave-behinds so they can distribute to families or include in their parent communications.  Now your resource has value beyond the evening itself.

Keep the Relationship Moving

Try not to lose focus after the event; this is where many otherwise successful outreach efforts fall apart.

A provider presents at a parent night, exchanges a few business cards, sends a thank-you email—and then disappears until the following spring.

Instead, establish a **regular drop-in relationship.**

That doesn't mean showing up unannounced every Tuesday or even meeting in person with the counselor.  It means periodically but regularly  checking in with the counseling office. You might do this every six to eight weeks. The objective isn't to ask for referrals every time. It is to remain familiar.

Eventually, the counselor may have a parent ask about SAT preparation and think: "I know someone who can help with that." That's the relationship you're trying to build.

Offer Practice Testing

Practice testing can be another particularly useful way to support a school. A school may want to give students an opportunity to experience a realistic SAT or ACT before they commit to a preparation program.

An independent provider can potentially offer a free or low-cost practice testing event for the school community.  In fact, many local tutors have had great success by creating offering practice testing as a fundraising opportunity for the school.  This creates a win-win-win:

• The school gets a useful educational resource.
• Parents get objective data and information.
• Students get experience with the test.
• And you get an opportunity to demonstrate what you actually do.  

Again, the objective should be to “provide value first” and  let the business opportunity follow naturally.

Don't Forget Academic Tutoring

Although fall is one of the two business times of the year for test prep, Academic Tutoring, is a related opportunity.  Once a school knows and trusts you, there may be opportunities to support families with:

• Math and writing support
• Executive functioning
• Study skills
• Summer learning
• AP course support
• College readiness
• Academic intervention

This is particularly useful because the testing relationship may be seasonal, while academic needs exist throughout the school year.  Be sure to offer what your company does well and don't go down the rabbit hole of traying to be everything to everyone.  Limit your offerings to that which you are already awesome at and work on developing others--after considering the cost:benefit of doing so. 

Lastly, if Academic Tutoring is part of your product portfolio, it generally makes sense to provide information about your background, education, and experience with the subject.  This can be done through a one page tutor-bio. If you employ tutors, include their information as well. Keep it short and to the point and, if you have permission, include an image of the tutor.   A school counselor who knows that your organization can help with several different student needs has more reasons to keep you in mind.  

Public and Private Schools Can Work Differently

Your strategy doesn't have to look identical everywhere.  Private schools may have more flexibility around outside presenters, parent programming, and preferred vendors. They may also have parent associations that are particularly active.

Public schools can have more formal policies around outside organizations and communications with families and they often seem less approachable. But persistence pays off.

• Don't interpret a policy as a rejection.
• Ask what **is** permitted.

If the school is not interested, there may still be other similar opportunities through:

* PTO/PTA organizations

* Booster organizations

* College nights

* Career days

* Parent education programs

• Community education

The same principles of providing value and creating a longer term relationship would apply. 

The goal is to understand the school's ecosystem rather than trying to force your preferred marketing approach into it.

To get started, we recommend thinking in terms of three schools.  Choose the schools that are geographically relevant to your business and where you have a reasonable opportunity to become known. Then build a simple relationship calendar for each one.  Here's an example:

• Fall:  Parent night or college admissions panel participant/presentation
• October/November:  Check in with counseling
• Winter:  Offer testing or academic resources, discuss spring practice testing
• Spring:  Discuss summer preparation
• Late spring:  Offer a summer planning event
• Summer:  Prepare for the next school year

Over time, you aren't simply marketing to these schools, you are becoming a part of their educational resources.

The Long Game

The value of a relationship with a local school isn't always something you can measure in referrals or new students. In fact, approaching the relationship that way can make it transactional from the beginning—and transactional thinking is often both short-sighted and self-limiting.

Instead, think about what you can contribute. Can you make a counselor's job a little easier? Can you help parents better understand an increasingly complicated testing landscape? Can you provide a useful resource for students? Can you offer your expertise when the school needs it?

Give without keeping score. Build trust without immediately looking for a return. Become someone the school knows they can call when they need a knowledgeable, reliable person to help.

Good professional relationships tend to create opportunities naturally. But the relationship itself is the goal—not simply what you might get from it. 

For independent providers, that mindset can be especially powerful. We work in the same communities as the schools, families, and students we serve. When we invest in those communities because we genuinely want to be useful, we build something much more durable than a referral source. We build trust.